Bono’s special tribute to legendary Dalkey publican

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/bonos-special-tribute-to-legendary-dalkey-publican-who-ran-bar-like-his-own-monarchy-42434033.html

By Dave Kenny, April 15, 2023

BONO will tonight dedicate the New York opening of his Stories of Surrender show to legendary Dalkey publican Dan Finnegan, who died this week.

Much-loved Mr Finnegan, 95, passed away at home in the south Dublin village surrounded by his family. His funeral, literally, brought Bono’s hometown to a standstill.

The U2 frontman has been friends with the Finnegan family for decades and told the Sunday Independent the uncrowned King of Dalkey was akin to a ‘constitutional monarch’. 

“Finnegan’s Pub is not just my local. It is its own country with its own laws and customs,” Bono said from the Beacon Theatre in New York, where he was rehearsing for tonight’s show, which is based on his critically-acclaimed autobiography, Surrender.

“It is the domain of Dan Finnegan and his sons. It’s a constitutional monarchy where Dan is its Head of State and his sons run the government,” the singer  said.

“Dan’s eldest, Donal – the Taoiseach – is six foot four and, depending on the hour, can appear six foot seven. I would not want to mess with Donal Finnegan. Or his brothers. Or his sisters. Dan’s family are fine people but there is a code, a strictness. A reverence for tradition. Indeed, a respect for opera and for the kind of man who might know how to wear tweed, like my late father Bob.

“Dan loved my Da. They shared a love of opera and stage musicals, and Dan recognised when another prince was present, one who could actually sing. On the occasion when my father silenced the place by singing The Way We Were, followed by The Black Hills of Dakota, Dan looked over at me with something like pity, and I imagined him saying under his breath: ‘Think how far you’d have come if only you had your father’s voice’.

‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t have been there for his funeral. I’m a big fan of the Finnegan family and send them my love.’

While Finnegan’s is Bono’s home from home, his bandmate Edge’s earliest appearance there wasn’t met with the adulation he is accustomed to. Dan’s youngest, Alan, said that  Dan was utterly unfazed by – and sometimes unaware of – the A-List stars who have crammed his bar. A-listers who include Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson, Brad Pitt, U2, Woody Harrelson, Pamela Anderson, Maeve Binchy, Timothy Dalton, Brian Keenan, Salman Rushdie and actor Matthew Goode of Downton Abbey fame.

Checking cheques

“Dad couldn’t give a damn about the whole celebrity thing, and wouldn’t have known who many of them were,” said Alan. “For example, back in the ’80s there was a raft of stolen cheques going around.  One day, Dad rang the bell in a panic looking for Donal. He had a cheque for £30 signed by a name he didn’t know. ‘I’ve two buckos down here. The one at the counter is passing a cheque. It’s definitely one of these stolen cheques going around. Get the guards!’

“Donal told him to hold on while he looked at  it. It said ‘Dave Evans’. Dan scratched his head and replied: ‘Let me have a look and see what this plum looks like’.

“They walked out from behind the bar and there’s The Edge,  just back from a swim in the Vico. Donal greeted him. Dan wasn’t having any of it. ‘What are you doing, Donal? Get the guards, get the guards!’ Donal pulled him to one side  and said: ‘Dad, that’s The Edge from U2 –  one of the biggest bands in the world’.

“Dan replied, wearily: ‘THAT yoke? I fecking give up’.

“We told Edge this the other day and he laughed his  head off.”

Neil Jordan and his wife Brenda are neighbours of the Finnegans and remembered Dan fondly. “He was the best,” the Oscar-winner said. “A real gentleman publican who built up a great family business and was at the heart of the village for decades.”

Brenda added: “Dan was the father of Dalkey. He will really be missed.”

Speaking from the US, former Dalkey resident, RTE Football Correspondent Tony O’Donoghue, described Mr Finnegan as ‘unique’.

“So sorry to hear about Dan. He was such a decent man, and a great host, yet he never had time for any of the bulls**t which was flying around Dalkey,” the Corkman said. 

“He was utterly authentic. I remember one closing time when he was giving everyone their marching orders – which were always obeyed as you didn’t disrespect Dan. We were standing on Sorrento Road wondering what to do next, when he popped his head around the door and, with a grin, said: ‘Tony, what did you think of that match the other night…?

“He had just thrown us out and was all up for a long chat on the street! It was all part of the pub pantomime. He was a great character.”

Local TD, Cormac Devlin, also paid tribute to the Cavan native. “Dan entertained presidents, taoisigh, celebrities, the great and the good and, of course, his loyal, local customers who helped him build Finnegan’s into an internationally acclaimed watering hole.

‘His quick wit will be sadly missed. However, the image of him sitting on his favourite bar stool observing everything will always be fondly remembered by all of us who knew and admired him.”

One guest at his pub will definitely fondly remember her lunch there. Michelle Obama, her daughters and Bono turned the village into a movie set in 2013. Amid scenes of stressed Secret Service men talking into their sleeves and choppers whirling overhead, Dan’s chef son Paul cooked up a feast for the First Lady.

Dan fan: Dave Kenny watches rugby with Dan Finnegan in 2012. (Dan bought the pint.)

“Dan was very proud of Paul,” said Donal Finnegan, who recalled that his mischievous brother took great delight in telling the world’s media Mrs Obama had dined on fish and chips.

Pub regular Andrew Fitzpatrick, Chairman of Monster Entertainment, remembered Dan’s impish side. “The first time I was back in the pub after getting my kidney stones seen to, he met me at the door, put his hand on my arm and said, ceremoniously, ‘Welcome home, you’re a “stone” lighter!’”

Local salon owner Matt Malone recalled one quiet afternoon when he was having lunch in the pub with friends. “It turned 4 o’clock and Dan started to surround our table with high stools. I asked what he was up to. He replied: ‘You’re the only customers here this afternoon. So you’re not getting away!’.”

Dan Finnegan was born in Ballinagh, Co. Cavan in 1927 – the last of 10 children.  He went to Dublin to apprentice in the Old Dubliner pub in Temple Bar and, after a few years, he met his beloved wife Colleen  and they decided to emigrate to Canada.

Donal, Neil and CathyAnne  were born in Toronto, where Dan worked as a tram driver in Toronto Transit. After eight years, in 1962, they returned and opened a pub in Bride Street with his brother Peter. They sold that in 1970 and Dan and family moved  to the sleepy village of Dalkey, where he opened his Sorrento Lounge. 

“He was a great social man,” said Donal. “And customers loved him. Whenever he couldn’t remember someone’s name he always called them ‘Me ould flower’, and he got away with it every time.

“He was incredibly proud  of all of us, especially my brothers Peter and Alan for opening bars in Spain and he used to love talking about it.

“My other brother, Paul, came to work in Finnegan’s in 1989, and added a new dimension to the pub with  his food.’

Tragically, Paul died suddenly nine years ago, leaving a young wife, Ana, and their two children, Isobel and Sean. 

“But we’ve kept things going. It was great to watch the old man get over the hump [of his death]. It was very hard, but Mum’s help got him through it.

“A lot of tragic events happened in his life,” Donal continued, also referencing Neil’s rugby accident as a teen which has confined his acerbically witty brother to a wheelchair.

Alan Finnegan recalled the last few weeks of Dan’s  life. “I really came to appreciate the relationship my siblings had with him. I began to understand that we’d all been his babies once and that the time had come for us to all return that love and care he’d shown us as a family. 

“Family businesses can be battlefields, full of broken relationships and recrimination. That never happened in our family. At  least nothing that wasn’t forgotten about or agreed upon the next day. Dad was a great man and we all loved him.”

Dan Finnegan, father of the late Paul Finnegan, is survived by his wife Colleen, Donal, Neil, CathyAnne, Michelle, Peter, Alan and a wide circle of family and friends. 

As one who knew Mr Finnegan well for nearly 40  years put it: ‘It was always happy hour in the pub when Dan was around.’

Return of the Dub in a Tub

Sunday Independent, 1 September 2012

Rob Dowling lived out a bizarre dream when he sailed down the Amazon in a bathtub. Now, after a series of personal tragedies, he’s going back to South America to raise money for a children’s charity. But there’s more bad news, says DAVE KENNY: his tub has been kidnapped by Colombian terrorists

It’s May 2006, and Dubliner Robert Dowling has a splitting headache and a furious itch. He has just woken up in the gutter of a Peruvian town beside a mangy dog. He is wearing a life jacket and a cowboy hat (Robert, that is, not the dog). He is hungover to the point of insanity, and flea-ridden.

It’s hardly the most auspicious way to start an epic adventure, but Rob grabs his hat and hits the jetty to begin his solo sail down the world’s most hostile river, the Amazon. In a bath tub. ‘Rob the Dub in a Tub’ will set one of the bizarrest world records ever, but today he just needs to find some paracetemol.

Rob’s dream of sailing down the Amazon in a bath dates back to a pub conversation when he was in his 20s.

 “Myself and my mates were discussing things we’d like to do before we die,” he says. “I joked that I’d like to travel down the Amazon in a tub. Twenty years later, I did just that.”

 A series of life-tributaries led him to the world’s joint-longest river. The catalyst was a deep depression left by the break-up of his 22-year marriage.

“I was alone and miserable. The family home had been sold off and I was in my mid-40s on the edge of despair. My life as I knew it was over. No-one else was involved. It just ended,” he says.

“I had two choices: stay depressed or patch myself up. I felt emasculated by the divorce. I wanted to do something that would give me back my masculinity. Something really challenging.

“I sail as a hobby – even though I can’t swim – so I decided to test my nerve and boating skills by making the bath journey. I had a good job with Tayto and had some money left over from the house sale, so I started planning my adventure.”

That adventure would see him fleeing murderous guerillas, cut-throats, crocodiles and witch doctors. He would also meet some extraordinary people, including a small, paralysed Indian girl who turned his life around.

It’s a journey Rob’s about to undertake again, hopefully, next month. He had planned to go last January, but a personal tragedy of devastating proportions stopped him. He chokes as he begins to describe it and it’s left until later in the interview to discuss. Despite this, he now feels he is emotionally ready to return to the Amazon.

Two weeks ago, Rob received a ransom message from Columbian narco-terrorists, FARC. The most feared group in South America have kidnapped something very precious to him – his bath tub. He needs to go back to the Amazon to rescue it.

“No, I’m not nuts. I’ve been through a lot with that bath. It’s very special,” laughs Rob.

“I bought it in Peru. Then I got a team together. We housed it in a steel frame, with fuel and water barrels on either side, and a 15hp outboard engine.

“Everyone thought I was mad and would drown. An English missionary told me not to worry about organising for my remains to be flown home if I was killed. ‘The piranhas will take care of that’, he said.

“I planned to travel 5,471km solo with a GPS and a satellite phone. I set off from Iquitos in May 2006. The support boat was to stay with me for five miles, but got into trouble after two. I had to tow it into a town behind my bath. It was some sight.

“I’m not a huge drinker, but that night we were treated as celebrities and drank our way through the town. This was drug country: there were guys with mirror shades and scars everywhere. I was wearing my Stetson, life jacket and shorts – it was asking for trouble, so I decided to call it a night.

“The support team had taken over the boat and the bath. I spotted a mangy dog in a gutter and lay down beside it. I knew if anyone tried to mug me it would bark and wake me.”

A few hours later, Rob started his journey. He made it three miles before he ran into a storm.

“I thought I was going to die. My lifejacket was useless [airport security had confiscated the gas cannister], I was hungover with swirling waves battering my little bath. I was terrified I’d be bashed off the rocks.

“I weathered it in the end and continued chugging along, being eaten by mosquitos and avoiding bandits. That first night, I pitched my tent near a village. The children were the first to visit me. Once I had given them some of my sweets (they had never seen sweets before), the parents started to appear.

“A family took me in and looked after me. It was typical of the hospitality I was to experience along the way.”

Rob also experienced some of the grinding poverty the river children have to endure.

“I have two sons, Colin and Mark. I love kids and the lack of basic facilities for them there is horrific.”

One evening as he pitched up on the bank, he got a satellite call to tell him that the Brazilian navy didn’t want him to travel any further. He was in FARC country.

“I sensed I was in danger. One of the local boys kept making the cut-throat sign with his hand and saying ‘gringo’ to his friends.

“The villagers begged me not to continue. One local offered to guide me past the FARC camp but I knew he was setting me up to be robbed. My $4,000 engine was worth 10 years wages to these people.

“I headed off before dawn, as fast as I could, for the Brazilian side of the river. Later that night, I slipped past the guerilla stronghold unnoticed. I was scared out of my wits. I could smell and see their cooking fires as I passed by.”

Rob’s journey ended after 500 eventful kilometres. He had letters of safe conduct from Peru and the blessing of Amazon charity, Caritas. The Brazilian navy, however, didn’t want him on the river. His adventure was over. Deflated, he donated all his equipment to help the children of a nearby village.

“I then spent a month boozing in Rio. I was really hurting over not being able to continue.”

Once back in Ireland, Rob won a Best of Irish Award for his achievements.

“Everyone wanted to see the bath, but I’d left it behind. So, the following year, I headed back to get it. It had grown legs. I travelled into Colombia and was told it had been sold for a cigarette by a woman who thought it was possessed. It was hidden in the jungle somewhere.

“I returned to Peru really disappointed and accepted an invitation to go on a field trip with Caritas into the rain forest. It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. The experience completely changed my life.

“We visited a remote village and there, in a small mud hut, I met a child called Jazmin. She was 12, malnourished and paralysed from the waist down. She had open sores on her body. I was furious that a child should have to suffer like that without proper care.

“Caritas advised me to get medical help for her rather than give cash to her family. It really pissed off the witch doctor who was ‘treating’ her.

“We sent her to Iquitos for tests and I did what I could before heading home. I tried to get on with my life but I kept seeing her face. I phoned a friend in Peru who said she was dying. With the help of friends, I raised €4,000 for her.

“It wasn’t enough, so I hired a nurse for her. Then I bought plane tickets for her to travel to a children’s hospital in Lima with her mother. She spent months there getting well.

“Jazmin brought out something in me. The desire to help kids like her became all-consuming. My mission now is to set up a medical centre on the river to bring these kids a better life.

“To do this, I have to raise funds. I had a successful holistic healing business which I neglected while concentrating on Jazmin. I’m broke. I’ve been to Peru seven times and spent $40,000 on my bath to-date. Each journey costs around €5,000.

“I want to return to Colombia and rescue my bath. When I was last there, I was told that FARC would give it back for $200. I met them and it went up to $600, which I didn’t have. I was told last week that they’re willing to talk again.”

Rob needs a sponsor to help him get there. “Someone who believes in savouring life” like he does.

“When I get the bath back I’m going to finish the Amazon journey. Then I’ll take it up Kilimanjaro, through Death Valley and paraglide it from a volcano in Peru. I’ve worked out the logistics. Those trips will raise the funds I need to set up my centre.”

On paper, those plans look mad, but Rob speaks about them with disarming determination and honesty. The latter is a quality he has in abundance. He opens up and reveals that 2011 was a nightmare year for him.

In the Spring, he lost his father to cancer. In the Winter his best friend committed suicide. In the Autumn, his son Colin (24) emigrated to Australia for two years. His other son Mark (26) made plans to follow him. Losing your sons for two years must be very tough.

“It gets worse,” says Rob, his voice suddenly cracking. He pauses.

“Mark died.” He crumples in on himself, overcome with grief. Wave after wave of it hit him as he tries to talk about the death of his son, just seven months ago. The man who has weathered the Amazon is rudderless in his own private tempest.

 “He had gone to a New Year’s Eve party with friends. He didn’t make it home. I can’t say much about it as there is going to be an inquiry. Everybody loved Mark. He was bubbly and kind. He was never in trouble. It was just that his time was up.

“When I heard the news, I went down to the estuary in Donabate and screamed like a banshee, ‘Why?’ He was a beautiful soul with his life before him.

“I met Mark for dinner at the end of December. I had intended to head out to Peru just after Christmas. I thank God that I didn’t have the finances to go. Otherwise I wouldn’t have had that dinner with him. It was the last time I saw him alive.” He pauses again.

“Well that’s that,” he says with an air of finality that is as unconvincing as it is moving. He is trying to master his grief. Each time he speaks it’s as if someone is punching him in the stomach.

“When you lose a child you join a very exclusive and painful club.” He winces again.

Life seldom has tidy endings. Rob once conquered the mightiest of rivers in the frailest of crafts. He saved a dying Peruvian girl. It’s an uplifting story, but it doesn’t end there.

Now, he is navigating through the unfamothable pain of losing his own child. Despite that pain, he wants to return to the Amazon to rescue more children. And to visit Jazmin.

Life is never tidy.

The day after Rob was interviewed for this article, he received news from Peru. It was about the frail little “daughter he never had”.

Jazmin had died.

 

Email: Rob@amazonchildren.com

http://www.amazonchildren.com

  

 

 

 

 

‘The real Shane Clancy was not a killer’

Leonie Fennell is continuing her fight to show how prescription drugs drove her son to kill

By Dave Kenny
Sunday June 03 2012

Three years ago, a young Trinity student drove to Dunnes Stores in Cornelscourt and bought a block of knives. It was nearly five in the morning, but no questions were asked. Shane Clancy, 22, was sober and respectable-looking. Not the usual knife-carrying type. He may have been a chef on his way to or from work.

Shane then drove to the quiet residential area of Cuala Grove in Bray where he unleashed an attack of psychotic proportions on his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. Sebastian Creane, also 22 and a talented and popular young student, died from a knife-wound to the heart. His brother Dylan was stabbed nine times when he came to his aid. Jennifer Hannigan, the young woman at the centre of the fatal ‘love triangle’, was stabbed in the back but managed to escape and raise the alarm.

The following afternoon, August 16, 2009, Shane Clancy’s body was found in the back garden at Cuala Grove. He had stabbed himself 19 times.

Saturday night knifings are not rare in Ireland any more. What made this murder-suicide particularly shocking were the subsequent descriptions of Shane Clancy as a gregarious teetotaller whose life revolved around family, study and charity.

He had no history of mental illness or violence and was a model student, entering his final year of Irish and theological studies. He lived in a flat in Dalkey, with a support network of cousins nearby.

He regularly saw his father Patrick, who lives in Dun Laoghaire, and his mother Leonie, who lives in Redcross, Co Wicklow, with her second husband Tony and their three children.

What made this sweet-natured young man’s personality change so dramatically in a matter of weeks?

“That was not Shane,” his mother Leonie Fennell says with conviction. “The real Shane could never have done such a terrible thing. He wouldn’t have hurt a fly. Something changed in him in the weeks leading up to that night.

“Shane was the nicest, kindest, funniest guy. He was adored by everyone. He had a huge passion for the underdog, especially the homeless. We regularly had Christmas dinner late because we had to wait for Shane to finish up handing out dinners to the needy in Stradbrook rugby club,” she explains.

“On his 21st birthday, he asked guests to put donations in the Vincent de Paul box instead of giving him presents. That was the real Shane. His Irish lecturers in Trinity called him ‘an chroi mor’. Shane couldn’t have done what he did if he was in his right mind.”

Shane was the eldest of Leonie’s six children: Liam, now 24, Jake, now 21, Jack, now 14, Henry, now 8, and Lucy, now 4.

“He really loved his brothers and sister. Henry, our then five year old, was the apple of his eye. He was the centre of Henry’s world. Shane adored children.”

The inquest into Shane’s death returned an open verdict. The jury rejected an option of death by suicide but found that he died from self-inflicted injuries. It wasn’t satisfied that he had intended to take his own life. Shane had toxic levels of the SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) anti-depressant, citalopram, in his system.

Leonie believes that the drug was the reason for her son’s personality change in the lead-up to the events of August 16, 2009.

She is not alone.

The former assistant State pathologist who carried out Shane’s post-mortem expressed his concern about the link between anti-depressants and suicide at his inquest. Dr Declan Gilsenan said he had seen “too many suicides” after people had started taking the drugs. He questioned whether GPs were over-prescribing them.

Another expert, Professor David Healy, maintains that the pharmaceutical industry is being protected by psychiatry who “state in public that not only did the drugs not cause a problem, but that they cannot cause a problem”. Healy said that in a small, but significant, minority of patients, using anti-depressants can give rise to suicidal and violent behaviour.

Leonie took Dr Gilesenan and Prof Healy with her to meet Kathleen Lynch — the minister with responsibility for mental health — last week, to warn her about the side effects of SSRIs.

“Since that meeting, the Government is accountable the next time there’s a shooting or some young person goes and does something suicidal or violent while on these drugs. It’s been brought up in the Dail, the Seanad and in Leinster House. Nobody can say they weren’t warned,” she says.

Leonie’s campaign has drawn strong support from the US and Canada where there are numerous documented cases of the adverse effects of SSRIs. Her work has also led her into confrontations with members of the psychiatric profession here. She is telling her story in the Sunday Independent today to highlight her fight against big pharma and the drug Shane was prescribed prior to August 16, 2009.

It’s important to point out that Leonie will not talk about the Creanes or Jennifer Hannigan. She is anxious not to cause them further pain. This is her story. She is compelled to talk about Shane so that other families don’t suffer the same fate as theirs. Neither the Creanes nor Jennifer were asked to contribute to this article. They have a sympathetic forum here, should they ever wish to avail of it.

Shane’s spiral into depression began in spring 2009. He and Jennifer had been going out with each other for three years. In March, he decided to end the relationship — a decision he later regretted. He became increasingly depressed, telling Leonie — and anyone who would listen — about his broken heart.

Jennifer told his inquest that when she started dating Sebastian Creane, Shane began to change “in the way he walked, talked, everything”. As the weeks went on, Shane’s depression deepened.

He cancelled a trip to Calcutta with the charity, Suas, and was left with the whole summer free. At his family’s suggestion, he booked a recuperative trip to visit his cousin in Thailand, en route to Australia and the US. Initially, Shane’s mood seemed to be improving and his family believed his depression was lifting. It wasn’t.

He flew on to Australia and the US, but came home early. Leonie took him to a doctor on July 18. He was told to exercise and eat properly for a week to see if that made him feel any better. A week later, she took him back to the clinic, and on July 27, he was prescribed a month’s supply of the anti-depressant, citalopram 20mg.

“He took them as prescribed but after the first few days began to get agitated. On July 31 he said his tongue felt very swollen, which is a side effect of citalopram. He also said he thought he had the ‘flu. This is consistent with the effects of the drug,” says Leonie.

On August 5, Shane took the remainder of his month’s

supply of tablets in a suicide attempt. He slept for 24 hours.

“When he told me what he had done, I asked him: ‘but who’s going to take care of Henry? Who’s going to take him out if you’re gone?'”

Leonie took her son to another GP who was told that Shane had taken a high dosage of citalopram two days previously. The GP prescribed a three-week course of the drug at a lower dosage. That was one week before the events at Cuala Grove.

The night of August 15 began with a visit with friends to the Eagle House pub in Glasthule, where Shane and Seb ended up in company together.

“Shane hadn’t wanted to go out, but his friends insisted,” says Leonie. “They thought it would cheer him up.”

The group later went to the Vico Club over the Queen’s bar in Dalkey. Two friends of Seb Creane said Shane was “extremely quiet”, but later he offered to take them home. Shane dropped his other passengers off and drove Seb to his house. He was subsequently asked to leave when he asked for a knife or a scissors to fix his shoe.

He then went to Dunnes Stores and bought a block of kitchen knives. He returned to the house, where he stabbed Seb, Jennifer and Dylan before taking his own life.

Leonie’s recollection of the morning she received the news is fractured and surreal.

“Someone, I think it was Shane’s dad, phoned me about 10am to ask if I knew where he was. Then two guards came to the door asking to see Shane. I said he was probably in Dalkey. They said there had been an incident in Bray and somebody was dead. Shane was involved.

“I just presumed that they had got it wrong. Shane could never hurt anybody. If he had, then he would be dead by now, I said. He would have walked into the sea.

“About 1pm, one of guards went outside and I saw Tony coming in. I just knew by looking at his face. He didn’t have to say anything. This noise came out of me. I don’t know where it came from. I’d never heard it before or since.”

The funeral in Dalkey was an, understandably, low-key affair. Shane’s friends and family said their farewells, while trying not to be disrespectful to the living.

“My brother wanted to do a reading which said ‘you’re an inspiration to us’. Someone said: ‘you can’t say that’. It’s always in the back of your head that there are other people involved. It had to be toned down. We couldn’t do what we wanted to do.

“I would be a million times more vocal about the side-effects of SSRIs if there weren’t other people involved.”

Leonie is treading on eggshells. After Seb Creane’s inquest, his family said they took issue with evidence which they claimed “ascribed fault to prescribed medication” Shane had been taking. This medication is at the heart of Leonie’s campaign.

Her appearance on the Late Late Show in October 2009 — and claims by psychiatrist Dr Michael Corry that the side-effects of anti-depressants can “tip somebody into suicidal and homicidal behaviour” — drew a storm of criticism from the psychiatric community. It was counter-claimed by the Irish College of Psychiatry that there was “no evidence” to link SSRIs with violence. It said that Dr Corry’s comments may have stigmatised people using anti-depressants to successfully combat their condition. Leonie is resolute.

“These SSRIs can cause severe reactions in some people, leading to suicidal or homicidal impulses,” says Leonie. “It’s well documented in the States where they carry ‘black box’ warnings. That’s the sternest type that a medication can carry. It appears on the label of a prescription medication to alert you to any important safety concerns. In Ireland, anti-depressants are being handed out like Smarties without the same kind of ‘black box’ warnings.

“When it comes to cocaine, crystal meth, or LSD, we have no difficulty thinking a drug might contribute — the drug is guilty and the person innocent. But in the case of prescription drugs, the drug is always innocent and the person guilty.”

Leonie has taken up studying law “because I think it’s the best way of discovering how big pharma is, literally, getting away with murder”.

Throughout the interview, there is the over-riding feeling that Leonie is very good at putting on a brave face.

The veneer cracks occasionally and the strain of what she is going through becomes apparent. She is trying to make sense of Shane’s actions, while mixing sympathy for his victims and grief for the son she has lost.

“How could Shane do that to someone else’s family? How could he stab himself 19 times?”

There have been occasions when she has felt close to collapsing.

“Friends of ours are farmers and there are some days when I would like to ask: ‘Is it okay if I go up to that field where nobody can hear me and scream?'”

Leonie still feels Shane’s presence. “A few days after he died, I was lying on the bed with Tony in front of me and Henry behind me, spooning. I was half awake and it was like Shane had his two arms around me. It was so weird and I didn’t want to wake up although I knew it wasn’t him. It was so real.”

After Shane’s death, she gave most of his belongings to his friends and Oxfam.

“I still have a lot of Shane’s things, like his T-Shirt,” she says. “The one he took off the night before he went out. I hold it and smell it all the time. It’s probably filthy now … stained with my tears.”

Leonie sounds apologetic, embarrassed by the admission. She pauses and looks briefly at her handbag. That glance reveals something unexpected. Something incomprehensibly sad.

“I know it’s stupid,” she says, “but I carry that T-shirt with me everywhere I go.”

http://leoniefennell.wordpress.com

– Dave Kenny

Terrible lie by troubled teen led to horrific death

A tragedy not unlike a John B Keane novel has blighted the lives of loving, heartbroken parents Lotte and Denis Lyne

Sunday Independent, 13 May 2012

Stephen Lyne was just 17 when he bled his life away on a grass verge, metres from his home. He had been stabbed in the back after being falsely accused of raping a teenage girl. The girl later admitted her claim was “a blatant, disgusting lie”.

His killer, Shane Regan, will never be brought to trial. In August 2010, he died after falling down the stairs of his rented home. Regan – also 17 at the time – was a distant cousin of Stephen’s. That relationship counted for nothing when he drove a knife 11.5cms into his victim’s body in a Kerry laneway on June 18, 2009.  The chain of events leading up to that night wouldn’t seem out of place in a John B Keane tragedy.

“Stephen never knew why he was being killed,” his mother Lotte says. “He kept asking Regan ‘Why are you doing this, cousin?’ Regan gave him no explanation.”

The girl who cried rape – Jessica Klok – was then 15 and going out with Regan. In March, she apologised for her lie during the trial of Martin Ollo (19).  The Estonian student, of An Doireann Aileann, Killarney, had pleaded not guilty to two counts of conspiring with Regan, of Droumkerry, Fossa, Killarney on the nights of June 16/17 and June 17/18  to assault Stephen, causing him harm.

On March 2, Ollo was found guilty of the first charge and given three years at Tralee Circuit Criminal Court. Before sentencing, the judge acknowledged that he had not intended for Stephen to be killed and was not directly responsible for his death. The trial had heard that Ollo did not know Regan had a knife  on the night Stephen died.

The pair planned to lure Stephen to Scrahan Mews, off Ross Road, on June 16 so that Regan could give him a beating.

“Martin Ollo came on a family holiday with us. We travelled across Europe for a month. How could he betray Stephen like that?” asks Lotte.

“Stephen couldn’t see badness in anyone. He was too kind and was always helping people. Everyone loved him. He just hadn’t learned to read people properly. He was only 17.”

This is the first time Lotte – who is Regional Business Development Executive with financial firm, MCN Associates – has spoken about the full extent of her family’s ordeal. She wants to set up a foundation to stop delinquency before it happens. “Children are not born evil,” she says.

Lotte (45), who is Danish, moved to Ireland in 1982 and met her husband Denis in Killarney four years later. They married in 1988 and had their first daughter, Tasha (23), in 1989.

In 1990, they moved to Denmark where their other five children – Benjamin (11), Jonas (16), Mathias (17), Stephen (pronounced ‘Stefan’) and Sofie (21) – were born. In 2001, the family returned to Castle Falls, Killarney: a highly desirable address in a county renowned for its beautiful scenery. The Lynes wanted their children to learn about their Irish roots. Tragically, one of those family roots led to Shane Regan.

“Stephen had only known Regan for about six months. He was delighted when he found out that they were third cousins. He was really proud of his family,” says Lotte.

Stephen, Ollo and Regan were part of a large group of teens who hung around together during the early summer of 2009. The court heard that Regan had a reputation for being domineering, violent and manipulative.

During the  June Bank Holiday weekend Regan’s girlfriend, Klok, was spotted in Killarney Demesne with Stephen.  “They were walking and talking. Stephen was always very kind to Jessica,” says Lotte.

Klok later told Regan that Stephen had dragged her into the woods, put a knife to her throat and raped her. To compound the lie, she added that Stephen had done this to four or five other girls. It was completely untrue. An enraged Regan repeated the accusation to Stephen’s sister Sofie, saying he was “going to get Stephen” Sofie warned Lotte of the threat.

“I absolutely knew the rape claim wasn’t true. I knew my son. Everyone who knew Stephen said he wasn’t capable of such a thing,” says Lotte. “I told him he was in danger and to stay off the streets.”

Her fears were well-founded. She and Denis foiled the first ambush on June 16 when they picked up Stephen on the road and brought him home.

The court heard that, in the early hours of June 18, Ollo went with Stephen to Scrahan Mews to smoke cannabis with Regan.

“No alcohol or drugs were found in the toxicology tests on Stephen. Reports that he had been smoking cannabis the night he died – or around that time – were not true,” says Lotte.

Ollo said Regan hit Stephen in the back and chased him on to Ross Road. He heard Stephen screaming, asking why Regan was attacking him. He was dying from a single knife wound to his back, which had cut through his kidney, spleen and arteries.

It was around 1.20am and, by this time, the Lynes were worried as Stephen wasn’t answering his phone. Lotte was in Dublin for work, so Denis went to search for him. He came across the crime scene and was devastated by what he saw.

“Denis has lived through the agony of losing his eldest son, but he has a heavier cross to bear. He constantly lives through the recurring nightmare of seeing the ambulance, the police, and the flashing lights. As he came upon the scene, he saw his son’s lifeless body lying on the grass.

“He re-lives that night over and over again, constantly blaming himself for not being there to protect his Stephen.”

Lotte will never forget receiving the news of her son’s death.

“I was staying at the Burlington. At 3.30am, two gardaí knocked at my door. They said I needed to call home – they did not know why. Denis picked up my call and told me what happened and the world stopped. ‘It is Stephen, he is dead, and he has been stabbed’.

“I remember slowly sliding to the floor as I cried out. The lady garda reached for me, repeating ‘I am sorry, I did not know’. The other garda sat with a stunned look on his face. I remember putting up my hand as if to physically stop the terrible news from being a reality, thinking that I could somehow, by pure force, hold back the finality of those words: my son is dead.

“The gardaí and hotel staff was very kind and organised a cab to take me to the airport to get a flight to Kerry. There was hassle at the Ryanair desk as I didn’t have my passport with me. After several phone calls, they eventually let me buy a ticket.

“I spent two hours, on my own, in Dublin Airport. I was miles away from my husband and children in the worst moments of our lives. I needed to be there to protect them from this horrendous truth.

“I phoned my parents and Stephen’s best friends to tell them what had happened. Afterwards, I went to the ladies’ and locked myself into a cubicle, shaking and sobbing as the pain raked through my body. I made several more trips to the toilet to collapse in tears before my flight was called.

“That flight was the longest 20 minutes of my life. I sat alone with tears flowing down my face. No-one came near me. Later, as Denis and I drove down Ross Road, I saw the tent that covered my son’s body. I have no words that will do justice to how I felt.”

Lotte speaks kindly of the other players in this tragedy. She bears Ollo no ill will, although he never expressed remorse to them directly.

Klok wrote to the Lynes after Ollo’s trial, finally apologising for what she had done. Lotte has sympathy for her. “Jessica was a very troubled girl back then. There are only losers in this story.”

Regan was never charged in relation to the stabbing. The trial heard he had “gone to his grave” believing Stephen had raped Klok. She told the court that he had admitted killing Stephen to her. Ollo would have been willing to testify against him had he ever been prosecuted for homicide.

Lotte was disappointed at the length of time it took for a case to be heard.

“Stephen’s brothers and sisters have faced a lot of heartache, very young. We waited for over two years for justice. The truth came out during the trial. Our son has been totally vindicated from the lies that were said about him.  People have admitted their involvement and guilt. We are thankful for the hard work that the gardaí have carried out to establish that truth.

“In memory of our son we are in the process of starting up the Stephen Lyne Foundation, which will focus on children and young people. It will aim to prevent youngsters from turning to violence and crime.

“This will be done through a number of initiatives which we will announce in due time. We also want to ensure that our son is remembered for the person he really was: an honest and loyal young man.”

In the meantime, the Lynes are coping with their grief “bit by bit”.

“We only cleared Stephen’s room last summer and that was because we were moving house. Sofie had moved into it to be closer to him and she did not want anything changed. I used to sit there looking at his posters, touching his belongings and the pain of losing him would take my breath away.

“I see him all the time. Sometime I will see a teenager who looks or walks like him, and my heart stops.”

Lotte shouldered Stephen’s coffin at his funeral. “It was something I had to do. I brought him into this world and had to carry him to his last resting place, no matter how heartbreaking that burden was.”

That physical burden lasted only a few minutes. Lotte and her family will carry the heavier burden of their loss forever.

*If you wish to contact Lotte about the Stephen Lyne Foundation, please email her at lotte@mcnassociates.ie

dave@davekenny.com

Meet The Liberator

Sunday Independent, 29 April 2012

He’s a Karate Kid from the Liberties who suffered sexual abuse, poverty and a long list of personal tragedies. Despite these obstacles, Derek O’Neill has transformed countless lives worldwide and now rubs shoulders with Christina Aguilera and Simon Cowell. Here, he talks about following in the footsteps of Bono and Winston Churchill…

By Dave Kenny

You’ve never heard of Derek O’Neill. By his own admission, he is one of Ireland’s best-kept secrets. But for the past 15 years, Liberties-born Derek has been quietly transforming the lives of countless people.

After witnessing devastating poverty in India, he set up the charitable SQ (Spiritual Quotient) Foundation to build schools, hospitals and other practical institutions in the world’s poorest regions.

It now operates in 11 countries, and 97 per cent of all money raised goes directly to source. Derek absorbs most of the administration costs. To date, he has helped more than 35,000 children.

He should be a household name for his humanitarian work, yet most of us have never heard of him.

Derek’s also an author, transformational therapist, motivational speaker and adviser to some of the world’s top business leaders. He rubs shoulders with Samuel L Jackson, Morgan Freeman and Christina Aguilera. Oh, and he knows Simon Cowell. If you don’t think that’s an impressive CV, then keep it to yourself. You don’t want to annoy Derek: he’s also a master of the martial arts.

Next Sunday, Derek will be honoured with Variety International’s prestigious humanitarian award at its world conference gala dinner in Dublin. Past recipients have included Winston Churchill, Bono, Henry Kissinger and Frank Sinatra. The accolade may finally bring him out of the shadows where he’s been labouring so long.

Forty-eight-year-old Derek is not what you would expect in a man who was raised by an alcoholic widow and has braved poverty, sexual abuse and the perils of kung fu fighting. He is gentle, eloquent and has surprisingly small hands for a warrior. They look more suited to arts and crafts than the craft of martial arts. His neatly cropped hair is a reminder of his time in the army.

“I was born with a full mop of black hair – they called me the fifth Beatle when I popped out of my mother on the dance floor,” he jokes, referring to the fact that he was born at Dublin’s Rainbow Club disco.

One of seven siblings, Derek comes from a classically poor Liberties background. “My dad worked in Jacob’s earning just the basic wage. There were nine of us in a one-bedroomed ‘artisan dwelling’. We took turns sharing the bed,” he laughs.

He was a loner as a child and would sit by himself in Patrick’s Park or down by the Dodder all day, meditating. His love of solitude and the outdoors earned him the familial nickname of “Nature Boy”. It also earned him some unwanted – and scarring – attention.

“We lived close to the Iveagh Lodgings and there would often be ‘dirty old men’, destitutes, hanging around. When I was six, I went to the toilet in Patrick’s Park and was sexually assaulted by one of them.”

Teenage sweethearts: Derek and Linda pictured in Arizona

His experience of sexual abuse didn’t confine itself to St Patrick’s Park. Derek’s brother Brian was raped and beaten in the notorious Letterfrack Industrial School.

He had been sent there for three years after “borrowing” the local butcher’s bike. He was eight years old.

“Brian was a fun-loving boy and just wanted a go on the bike. The butcher thought he was trying to steal it. He had a horrible time in Letterfrack and used to be beaten with a hurley and sexually abused.

“Brian developed alcohol and drug problems in later life. He was one of the first people to sue the religious orders and won his case in 2004. He left the courtroom and had a heart attack. A few days later, he died. It was as if he had been holding on for years to have his day in court.”

In 1970, the O’Neill family moved to Tallaght. His father was told, in neo-Cromwellian fashion, to go to the fields of Belgard or lose his job.

“It was like an ‘ethnic cleansing’ of the Liberties. My mother absolutely hated it. She was a real Liberties woman. I, on the other hand, loved it as I hadn’t been ‘Libertised’. There were open fields and rivers, and I made new friends.”

The O’Neill’s new house had all the ‘mod cons’. “We had a cooker with an electric ring. Back in John Dillon Street we had had a gas cooker. I remember my sister once put me up on the gas rings to tie my laces. They hadn’t cooled down fully and I burned my backside. I’ll always remember that gas cooker.”

Derek’s new life in Tallaght wasn’t all idyllic. At the age of 10 he was sexually abused a second time.

“One day this man followed me into a toilet to rape me. I could feel him between my legs. I ran home and told my dad. He didn’t believe me.” Brian eventually persuaded him to investigate Derek’s claim. The abuser subsequently moved out of the area. Derek later heard he had died of cancer.

“Years later, when I was 18, I spotted the man on a train. He was supposed to be dead. I asked if he knew who I was. ‘Sort of’, he replied. I lost control and started beating him. The older me was finally able to stand up for the younger me.”

Shortly after this, Derek entered the army. He hated it and left after six years, in his mid-20s with a wife (Linda) and two kids (Gavin and Orla) to provide for. “I did a bit of everything I could. I cleaned windows, cut grass…” His gardening work led him, indirectly, to seek psychotherapy.

“I had a terrible phobia about wasps, so I went to a psychotherapist. During our session I remembered that there had been a wasp in the toilet when the man tried to rape me. That was when I knew I needed therapy to deal with the abuse.

“I didn’t have any money and discovered that it was cheaper to study to become a therapist than pay for more sessions. There were social welfare grants.” Three years later, Derek was running a successful practice with a nine-month waiting list.

In 1998, Derek and Linda travelled to India for a holiday. The journey would change their lives. “We flew into Madras and while we were pushing through the crowds, we noticed a group of street children. We thought they were playing in a sandpit. It turned out they were amputees. We were told that criminal gangs inject these children with bleach to deform them. It makes them more valuable as beggars.

“Linda and I decided that, from then on, we would just take what money we needed to live on and give the rest to charity.” They went on to raise millions for the impoverished children of the subcontinent.

“The worst thing I have ever seen was a toddler with leprosy. I picked him up and his flesh fell off – practically his entire arm. There were villages full of children like him.” Derek’s spiritual nature and psychological training helped him to cope when faced with such horrors.

Yet another horror – 9/11 – drew Derek to New York, where he held his first ‘More Truth Will Set You Free’ psychology-meets-spirituality workshop. He now tours the United States, sharing his experiences with thousands of people and “empowering them to help themselves, as I have done”.

He even helped Spiderman find his mojo again. Derek was called in after the disastrous opening of Bono’s Broadway musical to “harmonise” the show’s cast and producers. The show went on to become a success.

Between their charity work and Derek’s burgeoning US career, the O’Neills appeared to have it all. That all changed on August 25, 2008.

“I fell in love with Linda when I was 18. We just knew we were for each other. Less than a year later, we were married. She was my right arm. Four years ago, I got a call from Orla who said Linda had a headache and didn’t look great. She was taken to hospital, where she was diagnosed with a migraine and sent home.

“Three days later Linda was dead. She was only 47.”

How do you move on from the death of your teenage sweetheart? Derek’s answer is, unsurprisingly, philosophical: “Death is part of life. We should cry when someone is born and celebrate when they die. Heaven is your rest after the hell of this world.”

I confess to being sceptical about aphorisms like this and the New Age methods of healing his website offers. I tell Derek I have an aphorism of my own, for would-be criminals. “It’s better to find the joy locked inside yourself, than find yourself locked inside The Joy.”

He laughs and it’s easy to see how he attracts thousands to his workshops. He’s instantly likeable. When he says that receiving the Variety Club gong will be the “proudest moment of my career”, there is no doubting his sincerity.

The award came about after a chance meeting with Kevin and Betty Wall of Variety Club Ireland.

“They told me they wanted to buy a Liberty Swing. These enable paraplegic kids to experience the playground thrill of swinging. I was so moved I promised to buy one for every county in Ireland. Kevin (who has since passed away) nominated me for the award. I didn’t think I had a chance of winning it. Hopefully, it will raise awareness here of the SQ Foundation,” he says.

Hopefully, it will raise awareness of this extraordinary Dub as well. He deserves to be recognised.

We shake hands and he leaves to enjoy a day off at Punchestown races. No one takes any notice of this ultimate “secret millionaire” as he exits the bar. Nobody knows who he is.

They do now.

dave@davekenny.com